In October 2010, “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” premiered on the Hub television network. Based on the toys which have been sold by Hasbro since the ‘80’s, the show follows the adventures of Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, and Spike as they explore the true meaning of friendship (hint: magic makes it all complete). The show, while originally targeted at little girls, is noted for having attracted the attention of a very unexpected demographic. Young boys, age 13 to 30, now comprise a secondary demographic called “bronies.” These bronies live on the internet, and make much more fan art and fan fictions than could fill a children’s TV show for several years. It is still undecided as to which of the ponies is most popular however. This study is meant to clarify on that point. It will only take into account the six ponies comprising the “mane cast.”

Due to the fact that the term “best pony” is a highly subjective term, as we couldn’t measure the most efficient method of pony, or the most effective pony, the paper will be an expose into which pony is most popular. The study consisted of collecting data from the three most used search engines, Google, Bing, and Yahoo, as well as one that used a different algorithm to achieve results, AltaVista. The data was collected by typing into the search engines query zone “<pony name> is best pony” and using the number of results as the indicative factor. The names typed in are, character for character, separated by comma’s: Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Applejack. The results of all tests, as well as averages, are as follows. All data was taken on December 5th, 2011.

Bing:

The final tallies are

1.Rainbow Dash 1,990,000

2.Pinkie Pie 1,600,000

3.Twilight Sparkle 938,000

4.Rarity 71,0000

5.Applejack 213,000

6.Fluttershy 118,000

The percentage totals are:

1.Rainbow Dash 35.73%

2.Pinkie Pie 28.73%

3.Twilight Sparkle 16.84%

4.Rarity 12.75%

5.Applejack 3.83%

6.Fluttershy 2.12%

Clearly, the first logical conclusion we can draw about this data is that the people who work at Bing are heartless jerks with no sense of cuteness, or kindness, or goodness. In this sense, they are very much unlike the author of this completely unbiased study. They are the kind of people that tvtropes.org would call “complete monsters.” Rainbow Dash statistically fared the best on the Bing results, with Pinkie Pie coming in second. The fact that Fluttershy placed last here is indeed unexpected, due to her being in first place on multiple forum polls, which will go unnamed.

Google:

The final tallies are as follows.

1.Rarity 16,900,000

2.Fluttershy 9,550,000

3.Applejack 6,900,000

4.Twilight Sparkle 4,880,000

5.Pinkie Pie 3,490,000

6.Rainbow Dash 2,740,000

The percentage totals are:

1.Rarity 38.01%

2.Fluttershy 21.48%

3.Applejack 15.52%

4.Twilight Sparkle 10.97%

5.Pinkie Pie 7.85%

6.Rainbow Dash 6.16%

This turn of events gives Rarity a large margin of victory over anyone. The two standouts from Bing came in first and last, which averages out to put Rarity in the winning role. The implications of this are vast due to Google’s superiority as a search engine. This news will surely please Cereal V.

Yahoo:

The final tallies are as follows.

1.Rainbow Dash 1,960,000

2.Pinkie Pie 1,320,000

3.Twilight Sparkle 842,000

4.Rarity 725,000

5.Applejack 200,000

6.Fluttershy 119,000

The percentage totals:

1.Rainbow Dash 37.94%

2.Pinkie Pie 25.55%

3.Twilight Sparkle 16.30%

4.Rarity 14.03%

5.Applejack 3.87%

6.Fluttershy 2.30%

This sample bears resemblance to the Bing sample. The number for Fluttershy was only 1,000 results apart. Clearly they are in evil league together. The author of this piece can be reached at his newly created gmail account.

AltaVista:

The final tallies are as follows.

1.Rainbow Dash 1,960,000

2.Pinkie Pie 1,570,000

3.Twilight Sparkle 928,000

4.Rarity 712,000

5.Applejack 207,000

6.Fluttershy 119,000

Total percentage results:

1.Rainbow Dash 35.66%

2.Pinkie Pie 28.57%

3.Twilight Sparkle 16.88%

4.Rarity 12.95%

5.Applejack 3.77%

6.Fluttershy 2.17%

This last single sample graph set follows the traditional pattern of Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie dominance. The fact that AltaVista had the exact same numbers in some cases as Yahoo causes the author to question the originality of Yahoo’s algorithms, because AltaVista came first.

The following two data sets are different types of statistical averages.

Unweighted Average:

This data was collected by averaging the percentage points scored by each pony throughout the previous samples. It serves to show which ponies fared the best compared to other ponies in each specific search engine, with the popularity of the search engine not taken into account.

1.Rainbow Dash 28.87%

2.Pinkie Pie 22.67%

3.Rarity 19.44%

4.Twilight Sparkle 15.25%

5.Fluttershy 7.02%

6.Applejack 6.75%

Weighted Average:

This final data set was compiled using raw numbers of results found. This is a weighted average because some search engines generate many more results than others (talking to you, Google). If one assumes that results generated correlates to popularity of search engine, then this is the most accurate reflection of pony popularity.

I think we all now know who best pony is.

Numbers:

1. Rarity 4,761,750

2. Fluttershy 2,476,500

3. Rainbow Dash 2,162,500

4. Pinkie Pie 1,995,000

5. Twilight Sparkle 1,890,000

6. Applejack 1,880,000

In this research, the author found that forum poll based sources tend to vary greatly. For example, an athletic based forum might vote Rainbow Dash with a vast majority, while a fashion blog might all vote Rarity. Meanwhile, deep in the TVtropes forum, a hundred aspiring writers vote Twilight Sparkle. Information from forum polls is very unreliable, and was only collected on a winner/runner up basis. The majority of the polls had Fluttershy winning, with Rarity and Pinkie Pie usually taking second. During the course of this write up, a picture posted in early November of a similar, smaller study (used only Google) came to the authors attention. He incorporated that information into his research. Regards and thanks to Wanderer. In a recent Equestria Daily Nightly Roundup, a poll was announced regarding a massive search for best pony. The author suggests looking into that research poll with more impressionability than other polls, due to the wide spread of Equestria Daily’s fanbase.